


Once More, From The Top

by Diamond_Raven



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame fix it, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Time Travel Fix-It, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 15:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18143822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diamond_Raven/pseuds/Diamond_Raven
Summary: After the events of ‘Infinity War’, Steve gets the opportunity to travel back in time and undo the past. Instead of just going back to undo Thanos’ attack on Earth, Steve decides to go further back: January 3, 1944, which will give him the chance to undo more than one wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. This story was intended to be an epic time-travel piece that explores Steve and Bucky living through 1944 to 2018. Unfortunately, I’ve only written up until Steve goes back in time and is reunited with Bucky and I don’t have it in me to go any further with it.  
> 2\. I've never seen Avengers: Endgame and this fic is my interpretation of how I wanted the movie to go (from a Stucky perspective). Any similarities between this fic and the movie are purely coincidental and a result of great minds thinking alike!  
> 3\. I love comments in any size, shape or form and I love chatting with readers, so it means the world to me if you took the time to write me a comment if you enjoy the story!  
> 4\. **TRIGGER WARNING:** The first chapter contains themes of depression, grief and suicidal ideation.

_‘The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best and sometimes, the best that we can do is to start over.’_

                                                                                                - Peggy Carter, Captain America: The Winter Soldier

*             *             *

He feels numb.

Thankfully, the numbness makes it easy to stay focused and deal with the catastrophic aftermath of Thanos’ attack. The wounded have to be taken care of, those who had been killed due to the fighting have to be gathered up, and the living have to be comforted. Nobody knows what to do with the mounds of ash that are everywhere.

Steve foolishly clings to the hope that the Stones effects have only worked within the realm of the battlefield. But when the living have gathered up the wounded and the dead and travelled back to the city, the reality of the situation hit him hard.

There is ash everywhere. The market places which had teemed with people has piles of it, and the wind has begun blowing the ash around. It gets into his eyes, his mouth, his ears and he sees people pulling their clothes over their faces to shield themselves.

It’s much worse than if this had been the result of a natural disaster. Everybody knows that the ash blowing around them and getting into their mouths and noses as are the remains of millions of people.

The scope of the deaths is impossible to comprehend. Everybody has lost dozens of people who they’d known.

Within the blink of an eye, Steve has lost almost every person he had cared about.

Bucky – gone. Sam – gone. T’Challa – gone. Wanda – gone.

The numbness allows him to stay focused so he can help deal with the aftereffects of the devastation. Once the wounded have been tended to and the dead who have left bodies behind have been buried, it’s time to say goodbye to the others.

Massive funerals are held in every community across the world. Shops sell different glass containers which can be used to hold the ash of a lost loved one, or just a sample of air taken from the area where the person had been standing. In an attempt to be respectful amidst an impossible situation, the governments order the ash to be swept up and buried in watertight coffins in special grave plots.

Everybody is grieving. Everybody’s lives have been shattered.

It’s instinct for Steve to push aside his own grief and to help those around him instead.

Once the funerals are done, once the streets are clean, once the world has finished its mourning period—it’s time to move on. Governments re-open schools, people go back to work, people’s bills are due, appointments which had been abruptly cancelled are re-scheduled. Natasha leaves to see how many of her contacts still remain and to figure things out. Shuri is officially made Queen of Wakanda in a beautiful ceremony that pays tribute to her brother and paves the way for a new chapter in Wakanda’s existence.

Life moves forward.

Steve does not.

He’s put a lot of effort into helping others but he’s completely forgotten to save some for himself. By the time the markets re-open and the subways start running again, Steve has nothing left.

His brain is moving very slowly these days and after spending days just wandering around and not speaking to anyone and not thinking about anything in particular, it occurs to him that he’d be doing a lot better if Bucky were here.

So he decides to go get Bucky. One part of his brain tells him he’s still in shock and not thinking clearly. But the other part of his brain thinks this is a great idea, and his feet are already moving before he can stop them.

He starts walking, heading back to the battlefield. It takes him a few days to get there. Logically, Steve knows it’s far away, but he has no idea how long it actually takes him. He has no supplies. He just walks out of his palace apartment and starts walking.

When he finally gets there, he’s dehydrated, starving, his feet and legs are aching, but he knows everything will be okay once he gets there and sees Bucky waiting for him.

But when he gets to the spot where Bucky had died and sees nothing but a thin layer of ash covering the ground, reality sets in.

Bucky isn’t here. Bucky is dead and Steve will never see him again.

His brain is screaming at him: Not again! _Not again!_

He feels a sob building in his throat and he falls to his knees, his shaking fingers gently running through the fine layer of ash on the ground. He’s too dehydrated for any tears, but harsh, anguished sounds are coming out of his mouth and he can’t stop them.

This can’t be real. This can’t be real! He’d lost Bucky once and his world had died right along with him, in more ways than one.

Then he’d gotten Bucky back and they were right back in a war—running from people who were trying to hurt them and trying to protect the people around them. Then Bucky had been put into cryo. When Shuri and T’Challa had contacted Steve in the middle of a mission to tell him that they could remove the trigger words and it was time to wake Bucky up, Steve felt as if his heart had started beating again for the first time since 1944.

But their reunion hadn’t been what Steve had hoped for. Bucky had been understandably disoriented and the procedure had left him with large gaps in his memory. He’d only remembered little flashes of his past and he had no concrete recollection of the people who had been part of his life. He’d remembered that Steve had helped him prior to cryo, he remembered that Steve had fought with him in the war and he remembered Steve had been his classmate at school. But nothing else.

To Bucky, Steve was merely an acquaintance, little more than a co-worker or a fellow soldier who he got along with well.

Once he’d realized the extent of Bucky’s memory loss, Steve had fallen into indescribable despair. He was happy that Bucky was alive and free and that he had a second chance at rebuilding his life, but a part of Steve had been raging at the unfairness.

Everybody around Steve seemed to have ups and downs, but most people seemed to get a happy ending if they worked hard enough and were kind, decent people. So why doesn’t he get a happy ending? He’s always helping others, he’s a kind, decent human being who’s never hurt anybody, and yet, the universe keeps kicking him in the face at every possible opportunity!

All he’s ever wanted was a normal life. When everybody was fighting the big bully called Nazi Germany, Steve wanted to join in, but once that was over, he wanted to go back to living his normal life: supporting his loved ones, being happy and helping the neighborhood kids when bullies picked on them.

And most importantly: growing old with Bucky, his best friend, his partner in all things, the love of his life, who used to look at Steve as if Steve was personally responsible for hanging up the sun and the moon.

During the war, there was a ritual he and Bucky would always do when they woke up on a morning when they didn’t have to rush to breakfast. Bucky would push Steve onto his cot and climb on top of him, eyes always widening a bit when he was touching Steve’s new body. He’d grin down at Steve and ask him if he could get a kiss. From there, the conversation would veer into different directions, depending on Steve’s response.

Steve remembers one particular morning—January 3, 1944—because Bucky had had a really good zinger in response to Steve’s wisecracking comment.

Steve had grinned up at him. “I don’t know, Buck. I think I’m all out.”

Bucky had quietly chuckled, wary of the thin tent walls but his eyes had been shining. “Oh, that’s too damn bad. Luckily, I’ve got some left, which ain’t a surprise since I’ve always been better at rationing than you. I don’t see why they think you’re the Army poster boy ‘round here when clearly, I’m better at all of this.”

Then he’d leaned down and kissed Steve, both of them laughing quietly against each other’s lips. In between kisses, Bucky mumbled something he’d say often: “I know I’m supposed to wish that you weren’t stuck in this hell with me, but to be honest, if I’m gonna be stuck here, then there ain’t nobody I’d rather be stuck with.”

*             *             *

Steve is struggling to breathe, clinging to the memory of Bucky’s voice, his face, his smile, his kisses.

It’s so damn unfair. The whole thing is so damn unfair!

Despite Bucky’s memory problems, Steve had been prepared to deal with it. Bucky deserved to live a happy and quiet life, and even if Steve would never get the love of his life back, he was sure that he and Bucky would at least become good friends again. After all, they hadn’t been born best friends and they hadn’t changed so much that a friendship would be impossible.

Steve had been careful to give Bucky space during his recovery. He’d continued doing missions with Nat but he’d been spending more and more time in Wakanda as his friendship with Bucky had grown and they’d gotten comfortable around each other again. He’d visited Bucky every time he was here and they’d chat even when Steve was somewhere far away. They’d talk about Bucky’s new arm, how he was feeling, the missions Steve was on, and Bucky would sometimes ask about memory flashes he’d gotten.

Steve had believed that the universe was finally giving him a break. That all of the suffering he and Bucky had gone through was now over, and they’d settle into living quiet lives in Wakanda.

Then this whole mess with Thanos had happened—and the universe is laughing at Steve again and leaving him drowning in grief.

He skims his fingers through the ash and the soft soil beneath, his heart aching.

This can’t be the end.

That’s just—that’s just unbelievable. This can’t be the end.

*             *             *

A few days later, he’d returned to palace and gotten a well-deserved earful from Shuri, Okoye and everybody else within shouting distance. They’d been worried sick over him and he’d been a fool—wandering into the wilderness with no supplies. Steve does feel bad for making them worry over him, but he feels too calm to be rattled by them.

On his long trek back to the palace, he’d come to a decision.

He’d made the right decision all those years ago to fly that plane into the ice. On the surface, it had appeared as if he was using a foolhardy method to save the world. Nobody would think about it hard enough to realize that Steve had been attempting suicide.

Unfortunately, he’d badly miscalculated his body’s ability to survive trauma.

Now that he’s stuck in the same situation, he knows what the next step is. He has nothing left in this world and he’s so tired of fighting for a happy ending when his only reward is constantly getting slapped in the face.

It’s time for him to join Bucky, Sam, Peggy, his ma, Gabe Jones, Dum Dum Dugan and all the other people who had been part of Steve’s past. He was never meant to be part of this time and it’s given him nothing but pain. But this time, he’s going to be smarter. He knows his body’s abilities better and he knows what he can and can’t endure. It’ll take some thinking and preparation, but he knows he’ll find a way.

Now that he has a plan and an end in sight, he feels much better about the situation. Calmer. He’s no longer overcome with pain and grief whenever he thinks about Bucky, but he feels excited. He’s gonna see Bucky soon. And the Bucky in Heaven will have all his memories intact. He’s probably sitting up there, playing cards with Gabe and Peggy, laughing at a story his ma is telling him. They’re all patiently waiting for Steve.

It’s giving him hope and a new reason to get out of bed in the morning. The people around him are surprised by his sudden change in attitude, but everybody’s too busy dealing with their own problems to pay much attention. The only person who Steve knows has a chance of figuring things out quickly and trying to stop him is Natasha.

He’s torn about the situation for a few days. Does he take the chance and meet with Natasha one last time to discreetly make sure she’ll be okay or is the risk too great?

But then the decision is taken out of his hands when two days later, his door bell rings and Natasha is standing on the other side.

*             *             *

“Hi, Nat. I wasn’t expec—”

“Steve, shut up and let me in.” She looks frantic. Her eyes are wide, her blond hair is in complete disarray and she’s got a huge grin on her face.

“I—okay.” Steve allows her to shove him away from the door enough that she can come in and shut it behind her.

“Engage privacy protocols.”

“What?”

She gives him a look. “Privacy protocols, Rogers. Now.”

Her tone pushes Steve into action and he asks the security system in his apartment to engage privacy protocols. The drapes soundlessly slide down to cover the windows, the lights turn on and hopefully, the cameras and microphones in the apartment are turning off.

Natasha’s grin gets even bigger. “Steve, I did it. I found a way to fix it.”

Steve stares at her. “Fix what?”

Her grin disappears and she gives him a look that makes him feel two inches tall. “Global warming, world peace and poverty.”

“I—really?”

She gives him a shove in the chest, sending him back a step. “No, God! What’s wrong with you, you fossil? I told you that I was gonna go fix things and now I have. Well, not yet. But things will be fixed.”

“Nat, I’m still confused. I thought you were gonna go find your old contacts and get back to work.”

She frowns at him. “No. I said: ‘I’m gonna go speak to my contacts and see if I can find a way to fix things.’”

Steve blinks. Maybe she had said that, but his brain hasn’t been working too well lately. “Okay…but I still don’t understand what exactly you went to go fix.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the little event that happened a month? That little event that led to three and a half billion people disappearing in the blink of an eye?”

Oh. Steve frowns. He feels really confused and slow. It’s like his brain is stuck in quicksand. “Okay. What do you mean you fixed it? It’s not fixed. Buck ain’t here.”

She opens her mouth, but then shuts it again, searching his face for something. He can’t read the expression her face, but she grabs his hands and squeezes them gently. “Let’s go sit down. Then I’ll start again, okay?”

“Okay.” He allows her to pull him to his couch and they sit down.

She squeezes his hands. “I need you to listen very closely, okay? I’ll slow down and explain things better, but you gotta keep up, okay? We’re on the clock and our window is getting smaller every minute.”

“Okay.” It feels like he’s saying that a lot, but his brain is still moving very slowly.

“I told you before I left that I’m not gonna rest until I found a way to undo this. Do you remember that?”

Steve frowns. No, he doesn’t. He shakes his head.

She makes a face and sighs softly. “That’s okay, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been searching for a solution and I think I found one.”

Steve’s brain starts moving, but it conjures up crazy images: a machine that can turn the ash back into a person, or the ash re-assembling into ash-people. He’s pulled out of these crazy thoughts by Natasha squeezing his hands again.

“Steve, we need to go back in time. That’s the only way to fix this. We need to go back in time and make sure that Thanos never gets all the Stones. That’s the only way.”

Time travel? Well, given the other alternatives his brain has come up with, that sounds more plausible.

It’s still nonsense, but it sounds more plausible. “Okay.”

Her face does something complicated and he can see a trace of annoyance. “Rogers, I need you to snap out of it! I know you’re in pain, you’re suffering and your brain isn’t in top form, but I need you to focus, okay?”

Jesus, she’s being so pushy. “Okay.”

She sighs heavily. Her gaze falls to his carpet and stays there for a while. Then her face lights up and she grabs Steve’s face with both hands. “Rogers. Do you want Barnes back?”

“As—as an ash person?”

“What? What the hell is an ash person? No. Not an ash person. The Bucky Barnes you ate lunch with a month ago at that kitchen table over there. Do you want him back?”

What a stupid question. A lump immediately grows in his throat. “Nat, I’d do…,” he can feel himself choking up. “I’d do anything. _Anything_.”

Her hands are like a vice on his face. “Good. Because I’m giving you that opportunity.”

Steve stares at her. The pain in his heart momentarily fades. “You’re serious?”

She nods. “Yes. Time travel. We don’t have the tech, but Asgard does. Well, did. There was a scientist on Asgard who was working with time travel technology. He refused to abide by governmental regulation, so he was banished. He came to Earth and he’s been here ever since. I’ve been looking for him for weeks, and I finally found him.”

“He—he can time travel?”

“Yes. Most of his work has been theoretical, but he has a working machine. Apparently, he never intended on using it, but when this whole mess happened, he put the finishing touches on it.”

“Okay. So the government will send somebody back?”

She sighs. “Steve, use your head. If he brings this tech to the UN and lets them decide who to send back and to when, it’ll take them years to pick a candidate or a date to send them to.”

Steve frowns. “Why?” It makes no sense. If he can get Bucky back—and if everybody else can get their loved ones back—then why would anybody delay?

“Think about it! The person who goes back will have immense power. They’ll have knowledge of future events that they could use to completely change the power dynamic of the world. It’s very, very dangerous business, which is why Asgard banned all time travel a long time ago and why they kicked out Zhedor.”

“Who’s Zhedor?”

“He’s the scientist.”

“Oh. You spoke to him?”

She sighs again. “Yes. Obviously. He doesn’t feel right about sitting by and doing nothing when he has a solution in his lap. So he’s gonna go to the UN soon. Even if he doesn’t, Asgard is already digging up Zhedor’s old research and they’ll dismantle their time travel prohibitions soon. It’s only a matter of time.”

Steve finds himself growing excited. “So once they do all that, then I’ll have Bucky back?”

“It’s not that simple. When Earth gets wind of Asgard doing this—which they will—it’ll create chaos. Yes, the Asgardians can just press a button and undo this timeline and then the bickering won’t matter, but until they do that, it’ll create a mess. I convinced Zhedor to give me a few days to find him a good candidate.”

“Candidate for what?” But the second he asks the question, he realizes he knows. “Oh. Okay, so who were you thinking? Are you gonna go?”

She wouldn’t have to go back very far. Just to the start of the battle and make sure that they’re successful at getting the Gauntlet away from Thanos.

But she’s shaking her head. “No. Not me.” She searches his face anxiously, as if she’s hoping he’ll get her point, but his brain isn’t up to such things. “You. I want it to be you.”

That surprises him. “Me? Why me?” He can do it, but she’s just as good of a candidate as he is.

She presses her lips together. “Because this is your chance. As soon as I found Zhedor, I realized what this is.”

“Huh?”

“Steve, this is fate. And don’t start laughing at me. I’ve never believed in crap like that, but then my best friend is suddenly reunited with the love of his life after they both spent 70 years being frozen on opposite ends of the world by completely crazy circumstances, and suddenly it doesn’t sound so stupid anymore.”

Fate?! “Nat, I don’t—”

She grabs his face again. “This has never been your time. You know it and I know it. I’m convinced that this—all of this—wasn’t supposed to happen. By sending you back, we can right two wrongs, not just one.”

That’s when it hits Steve and his brain suddenly erupts back to life, working at a hundred miles per hour. He won’t just go back to the battle. He can go back home. He can actually go back home!

He can go back to his time. He can go back to his life with his old friends and his old family. Back to a time where he can understand what everybody’s saying and nobody’s using crazy gadgets and people are wearing normal clothes.

But then it occurs to him that it’s unnecessary. As much as he’d love to go back to the 40s and resume the life he left behind, it’s not practical. At worse, it’s too dangerous.

The further back he goes, the higher the chances are that he’ll make mistakes that will allow Thanos to succeed again, or maybe for something even worse to happen.

Natasha must see the concern slowly growing on his face. “Hey, hey, hey. Stop it. I know what you’re thinking, but I figured it all out.”

“Nat, it’s dangerous. If I go back 70 years instead of one month, I’ll have tons of time to mess things up.”

She’s shaking her head before he’s even finished talking. “No. It’s the opposite. The further back you go, the more time you have to get things set up so Thanos won’t succeed.”

“There ain’t nothing I’d have to do until the battle.”

“No. No, no, no. Use your head, Rogers. We can’t wait until the battle. That’s way too dangerous. It leaves a huge chance that Thanos can do this all over again. You have to stop him way before he gets here.”

Steve frowns. “How? I’d have to find Thanos and how the hell would I do that when I’m on Earth in 1944?!”

She’s shaking her head. “Thanos isn’t the problem. The Stones are the problem. If Thanos can’t get all the Stones, then he can’t do what he did. He could still attack Earth if he wanted to, but that was never Thanos’ objective. If he knows he can’t ever the Stones, then he’ll stop trying.”

“So we hide the Stones? That’s still leaving an opening for Thanos to find them.”

“No, I agree. Hiding them is too risky. We need to destroy them. But we don’t have to destroy all of them. Even if we just destroy one of them, our mission is accomplished. Thanos will never be able to power up the Infinity Gauntlet.”

Steve frowns. “Nat, how the hell am I supposed to get my hands on a Stone? Most of them weren’t even on Earth.”

That’s when she grins at him and she looks excited again. “That’s true. But there was one Stone that you had within reaching distance for months.”

He’s about to declare that she’s crazy and he’d know if there had been an Infinity Stone within his reach—but that’s when he realizes she’s right.

The Tesseract.

The Tesseract had been in Hydra’s possession during the war. He’d seen it at the Hydra prison camp where Bucky had been kept prisoner, and then later, he’d seen it on the plane when fighting with Schmidt. And although he hadn’t known it at the time, the Tesseract had contained the Space Stone.

In fact, he wouldn’t even have to change things that much. The Tesseract had ended up in SHEILD’s custody anyway. After he and Schmidt had accidentally damaged the casing, the Tesseract had fallen out of the plane and disappeared into the ocean, sitting quietly on the ocean floor until Howard Stark had found it.

He stares at Natasha. “I need to make sure the Tesseract ends up in our custody again, but this time, I have to make sure SHIELD destroys it.”

She grins. “Exactly. But do me a favor, and don’t get it into SHIELD’s custody the same way you did last time.”

Steve laughs. It’s a slightly hysterical laugh. No, there won’t be a plane crash this time, because Bucky isn’t going to fall from the train this time. He knows exactly where the Tesseract is being kept. He knows exactly where Zola’s train will travel and where that Hydra base is located.

“Steve, look at me.”

With difficulty, he focuses on her. He’s starting to feel so excited that he wants to go right now. Right this very second.

“Steve, you need to spend time seriously thinking about this. You can’t just travel back to 1944 and declare that you know what will happen in the future so everybody needs to do what you say. Nobody will believe you. At worst, they’ll think you’ve gone crazy and send you back home. You need to know exactly how you’re going to handle things. Otherwise, it’ll all be for nothing and history will repeat itself.”

Steve stares at her. That can’t happen. That won’t happen. He won’t allow it. “Nat.”

“Steve.”

“I can do this.”

“I know you can.”

“I can do this. Buck and I are both gonna go home and I’ll take care of everything.”

She grins and pulls him into a hug, squeezing him tight. “I know you will.”


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha takes him to see Zhedor right away. The scientist wants to discuss Steve’s plan with him and make sure he understands what the time travelling will entail.

Steve is stuck in a permanent state of excitement. He needs to constantly remind himself that he needs to pay attention and that he’ll have a very, very serious job to do once he’s travelled back, but other thoughts keep interrupting.

He’s going home! He’s going to see Bucky! He’s going to see Peggy! He’s going back to the world where subway fare is 5 cents and the word ‘wireless’ is understood by everybody to mean a radio!

Zhedor manages to calm him down by giving him a reality check. This particular mode of time travel will result in Steve replacing his former self. He’ll go into the machine, close his eyes and once he opens them, he’ll be in the past, having replaced his former self. There won’t be an adjustment time. Nobody will know what Steve has done and nobody will believe him if he tries to explain it. But even more frightening is the fact that Steve won’t have any help. He won’t have Zhedor or Natasha waiting in the wings to help him or to discuss things. He’ll truly be on his own, with the fate of the entire universe in his hands.

If he screws up, he may start a series of events which could lead to an even bigger catastrophe than the one he’s trying to prevent. He needs a clear plan and he needs to gather all the information he’ll need before he goes. If he forgets what will happen in a specific year in the future, he can’t open up the internet to check. If he makes too much of a fuss or attracts too much attention, he may end up in a psychiatric hospital.

He’ll be completely on his own. It’ll be his responsibility to guide the path of humanity but he won’t have any backup. Then there’s the fact that if he changes his mind, he can’t come back. He’s going to be stuck in the new timeline. The only way to get back to 2018 will be to live through the 74 years before it.

All of that does a good job of tempering Steve’s excitement. He’d been so focused on getting Bucky back and getting back home that he hadn’t really considered the bigger picture.

So he, Natasha and Zhedor get busy planning. They come up with multiple solid plans for how Steve can get his hands on the Tesseract and make sure it—and the Infinity Stone within it—are destroyed long before Thanos even starts thinking about collecting the Stones. Zhedor emphasizes that due to Steve’s role in this whole thing being limited to 1944, he needs to make sure that he won’t be attracting too much attention and risk changing the timeline too much in subsequent years. He’ll go back to 1944, save Bucky, get the Tesseract, hand it over to SHIELD and make sure they understand that they must destroy it as soon as possible.

That’s when his part will be done. But the more he interferes with the timeline in the next 74 years, the bigger the chance that he’ll create another disaster, or something even worse. The best way to do that is to quit the military and step back from being Captain America.

To Steve, that all sounds like a blessing anyway.

But Zhedor makes him see that even though Steve will have to keep his meddling of the timeline limited, he still needs to know what will happen and when, so he won’t accidentally mess things up by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also has to know these things because if he sees that something has been drastically changed, he needs to keep a closer eye on things and make sure that the work with the Tesseract is still moving in a good direction.

So he studies. It brings him right back to 2011 when he’d tried to catch up on the 70 years of history he’d missed. But back then, he’d been drowning in grief and shock and the information he was learning was overwhelming. Now, the information has a veil of urgency surrounding it and Steve is more familiar with everything. Natasha and Zhedor test him for days, making him recite the important events of the 20th century, complete with the people involved, the dates the events took place and what impact those events had.

There’s one aspect of this that Steve hadn’t considered, and it doesn’t hit him until Natasha is asking him for the millionth time when the Vietnam War had ended and how many casualties the war had.

Before giving the answer that’s on the tip of his tongue, he pauses.

Natasha must see him pause, because she gives him a stern look. “No.”

“I didn’t even say nothing!”

“I can see you thinking it. Steve, Zhedor has been very clear about this. If you start meddling and changing things, it could lead to disaster.”

“Vietnam _was_ a disaster!”

“It wasn’t a disaster of your making, and it wasn’t as bad as losing 3.5 billion people! You can’t right all the wrongs of the 20th century, Steve. It’s not possible, you’ll drive yourself crazy and you’ll probably make things worse.”

She grabs his hands in a tight grip and gives him an imploring look. “Whenever you start second guessing yourself and thinking about interfering, then you look at Bucky and you look at your life and you remind yourself what happened the last time.”

“That’s…incredibly selfish, Nat.”

“So? You’ve spent your entire life giving things to other people and you’ve gotten very little in return. Now it’s your time to get the things you deserve. It’s not your job or responsibility to save all those people. Let the governments deal with it. The military. The police. The lawyers. But stay out of it. Your job is to stop Thanos from killing 3.5 billion people. That’s a big enough job and a good enough service to provide humanity, isn’t it?”

He thinks it over and realizes that she’s right. But then something else occurs to him. “What if there’s somebody who wants me to interfere a bit more?”

She frowns. “Who?”

“If you tell me where the Red Room was, then I’ll get you out of there, Nat. I promise. In fact, you can tell me exactly where you were born and I’ll come and whisk you away when you’re a day old. You’ll get to have a normal life too.”

Natasha shakes her head, a sad smile on her face. “No, Steve. You can’t do that and you know why. Besides, while there are parts of my life that I wish had been different, I don’t regret nearly as much of it as others do. Maybe it’s because of how my mind was shaped since I was little, but I’m happy with the way things have turned out. Besides—I’ve done a lot of good work for SHIELD and I know they don’t have anybody else who can do things the way I do them. It’ll change the timeline too much if I don’t become Black Widow. And to become Black Widow, you have to let my past happen the way it did.”

Steve sighs softly. He understands, but he doesn’t like it. “I still wish I could go find you when you’re a toddler. I think Buck and I would do a good job taking care of you.”

She smiles. “I know you would. But I’d rather the people I helped save still end up saved.”

“That’s what you want?”

She nods. “That’s what I want.”

*             *             *

Steve and Natasha carefully pick what date he’ll travel back to. Zhedor has tested his machine over the last few days, using both random objects and also Steve as test subjects, and although all of the tests had been successful, some of them hadn’t achieved the exact target date. The most he’s been off by is two days, so Zhedor wants Steve to pick a day which would be in the middle of five days of relative calmness.

Dropping Steve into the middle of a firefight wouldn’t end well for anybody.

Steve had briefly considered going even further back in time, so he could see his ma again and spend time with Bucky prior to the war, but he’d realized that would be self-indulgent and put Bucky’s life at risk. Maybe the changes would result in the serum not working, or Bucky being shot and killed while he was at the front without Steve.

The safest way to ensure that Steve will be at the front with Bucky and within reach of the Tesseract is to pick a date that’s close to the date when they headed off to capture Zola on the train, but not past it.

Steve knows exactly what date he wants.

January 3, 1944.

The Howling Commandos had gotten back from their last mission on December 31 and they hadn’t left for their next mission until January 6. That leaves Steve plenty of time to make changes to the train mission, which will take place on February 17.

That’s a date Steve will never, ever forget.

Once Zhedor has finished setting up the machine and he contacts Steve to tell him he’s ready, Natasha comes to pick Steve up and he leaves Wakanda for the last time.

*             *             *

_September 12, 2018_

*             *             *

It’s a strange feeling to walk out of the palace and wave goodbye to the people who he’s come to know and care about. He can’t tell them that he’s never coming back and the betrayal of that makes his heart ache. The Wakandans have done so much for him and Bucky, but in the end, he’s probably doing them a favor by making sure he and Bucky stay far away from Wakanda and anything related to Wakanda—including being accused of killing T’Challa’s father.

Natasha goes with him, which Steve is very grateful for. He’s nervous, worried, excited and overwhelmed. There are so many emotions bubbling through him that he feels like he’s about to explode. Thankfully, Nat keeps him from flying to pieces by continuously quizzing him about 20th century events and re-iterating the rules Steve will have to follow.

Once they’re at Zhedor’s and they’ve watched him do the set up and final testing of the machine, it’s finally time.

Steve stares at the cylindrical tube. This will be the second time he’ll step into a scientist’s machine with no guarantees that he’ll survive what happens inside of it. The last time, the tube had turned him into Captain America. This time, the tube will hopefully give him his life back.

And hopefully, he’ll be as lucky as he’d been the last time.

Zhedor is waving at the machine. “Please get into the machine when you are ready, Steve.”

All of the emotions that had been racing through him all day are even stronger now. He’s going to see Bucky soon! He’s going home! He’s finally going home!

Before he forgets, he turns to Zhedor and thanks the Asgardian for his help. Zhedor raises his eyebrows at him. “I should be thanking you, Steve. I lost a lot of people I care about too. All I am doing is supplying you with a way to undo what has happened. You are the one who has to do all the work.”

Steve shrugs. “But without you, we wouldn’t have this chance in the first place, so I think both of us deserve equal credit.”

Zhedor laughs. “If you insist, then I will accept.”

Holding out his hand, Steve shakes hands with Zhedor. Then he glances at Natasha next to him, and the final bit of reality hits him.

He won’t see her again. Maybe ever. He gapes at her, feeling that familiar grief wash over him, but for different reasons.

She gives him a sad smile. “You finally realized, huh?”

“Nat…”

She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t start. If you start crying, then I’ll start crying and you have to focus. If this works, you’ll be in 1944 in a few minutes.”

He stares at her. “Nat…I…I want you to come with me.”

“Don’t start with that. You know I can’t do that. You’ll be fine. You’ll have Bucky, you’ll have Peggy and you’ll be back home. You can do this.”

There’s a lump rapidly growing in his throat. “I know…I just…I’m gonna miss you.”

She gives him a sad smile. “I know. But it won’t be forever. All you have to do is make it to 2018 and then you can come visit me.”

That gives him some hope. The grief dulls a little bit at the thought that he won’t be losing her permanently. “Really? That won’t screw with the timeline too much?”

“Not if you visit me after today. Then I’ll know that you left and I’ll remember having this conversation. How about this: in three days, September 15, 2018, you and I will meet at the coffee shop across from SHIELD headquarters in Manhattan. 11:30 am. I’ll be there and you better be too.”

He stares at her. “Nat...that’s—74 years from now.”

She smiles. “For me, it’ll be 3 days. I can wait that long. And you’ll have lots to keep you busy for 74 years.”

His heart is glowing at the idea of being able to see Natasha again. “Really? I’ll be an old man.”

She shrugs. “Hey, that won’t be any different from how I’ve always known you. But maybe you’ll look a bit more your age. I’m actually looking forward to seeing how you’ll age. But most of all, I want to meet Steve Rogers when he’s lived the life he was meant to live. I think I’m gonna like that Steve Rogers even more than this one.”

Steve smiles. “Oh, I know you will.” He sighs softly. There’s still something about that 74 year wait that seems so lonely to him. He knows Natasha won’t have to wait that long, but…“How about I give you a signal?”

“Hmm?”

“After I go back, if anybody takes a picture of me, I’ll give you a signal.”

“Like one of our field signals?”

Steve nods. “Yeah.” He holds up his hand, with his index pointing up. “If you see me with my index finger sticking out, that’s me saying hi to you.”

She smiles softly. “That’ll…be really nice, Rogers. But don’t make it obvious.”

He gives her a look. “Thanks, Romanov, but you don’t have to lecture me about how to give covert hand signals.”

Rolling her eyes, she chuckles. “Fine.”

“So you’ll look for pictures?”

“I will, I promise. Now give me a hug and get out of here. Bucky’s waiting for you in 1944.”

Despite the sadness, that thought brings a smile back to Steve’s face. He wraps his arms around Natasha and gives her a tight hug. “I’m gonna miss you, Nat.”

She squeezes him back. “And I’m gonna miss you.”

“You’re gonna be okay, right?”

She pulls back and shakes her head at him, a smile on her face. “It’ll be 3 days for me, Rogers. 3 days. I can wait that long.”

Right. He keeps forgetting about that. Nodding, he takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”

She grins. “Good.”

Stepping towards the machine together, Steve climbs in and lets Natasha and Zhedor put all the sensors in the right places and shifting Steve this way and that to get everything connected to him properly. It’s exactly like it was with the Vita-Ray machine. Once again, he’ll have to close his eyes and hope that when he opens them, he’ll have a new and wonderful life to look forward to.

After Natasha and Zhedor are done and they step back from the machine, both of them giving him encouraging smiles. The machine starts to hum around him as it starts up and the device starts to vibrate.

“Good luck, Steve,” Zhedor says.

Natasha holds up her index finger and waves it at him. She’s smiling at him, but Steve can see the worry in her eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Steve smiles back at them. He stares at Natasha and maintains eye contact with her all the way until the lid slides down over him and leaves him in an enclosed, dark space.

Closing his eyes, he tries to relax as he puts his life into fate’s hands once again. As the noise and shaking of the machine intensifies, he sends a silent thought to Bucky.

_I’m coming, Buck. Just hang on._


	3. Chapter 3

_January 3, 1944_

*             *             *

It’s good that he’s done the testing sessions in the machine, so the effects don’t bother him too much. The rattling intensifies, sending intense tremors through his body, making it impossible to feel the machine around him anymore. The humming gets louder until his brain can’t process anything but that noise. It’s not painful, just intense.

The previous sessions had only taken a few seconds, but it’s taking much longer this time. He reminds himself that it’s to be expected: instead of going back a few hours or a day, he’s going back 74 years.

The rattling and humming is so overwhelming that he doesn’t realize when the machine stops doing it and it’s just his body continuing to shake and hear the echoes of that humming. In fact, it takes him a while to realize that he’s no longer in the machine at all.

He’s shaking like a leaf and he can’t hear anything other than the humming, but he slowly becomes aware that he’s lying on something soft. That’s definitely not the hard plastic of the machine’s interior.

He tries prying his eyes open, but they’re squeezed shut. His jaw is clenched tight and his entire body is seized up. He needs to breathe and let his body recover. That’s what he has to do.

Breathe, Rogers. Breathe.

With difficulty, he draws in small breaths, feeling his heart hammering in his chest. Slowly, the noise in his head fades and his body loosens up. Breathing becomes easier and the shaking calms.

Slowly, he opens his eyes.

The first thing he sees is the glow of an oil lamp, sitting on a wooden box. The bright flame flickers gently, sending light and warmth towards him. His eyes roam around the darkness surrounding the lamp and he can pick out achingly familiar objects.

A stack of papers, books and water canteens sitting on top of another wooden box, various clothes hanging from the tent roof, and Steve’s shield by the front of the tent. An extra sheet is pinned up across the tent flap to keep more of the winter cold out and the heat in.

And lying on his cot, sleeping peacefully only an arms length away, is Bucky.

Steve stares at him, barely believing his own eyes. Bucky is right there! Right! There!

He’s sleeping on his side, as he always does. Did. Does? Does.

The military issue wool blanket is tightly wrapped around him and even his nose is tucked under the blanket for warmth. His face is peaceful in sleep, the blanket gently rising and falling as he breathes.

Steve did it. Steve did it!

Intense emotion floods through him. Bucky is alive! He did it! He’s in 1944 and Bucky’s alive and everything’s going to be okay now. He quickly sends a mental thank you to his ma, God, Natasha, Zhedor and anybody else who was involved in getting him back here.

His heart is racing and he’s trembling from the overwhelming emotions filling his chest. Tears spring to his eyes and he’s having trouble breathing. He stares at Bucky and the urge to touch him and wrap his arms around him and never let go is strong enough that Steve realizes he’s pushed his blankets off himself and he’s stepping across the soft dirt floor between their cots in just his thick wool socks until he’s bent over Bucky, reaching for him.

He doesn’t think, he just touches Bucky’s shoulder beneath the blanket.

With a small intake of breath, Bucky shifts and blinks his eyes open, sleepily staring up at Steve. “What’s going on? I didn’t hear the bell,” he mumbles.

The sound of Bucky’s voice makes Steve shake harder. His throat seems to be closing itself and he can barely breathe. He opens his mouth to say something—anything—but the sound he makes is nothing close to a word.

As Bucky blinks some more and frowns at Steve, his eyes search Steve’s face and he seems to realize that Steve isn’t okay. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Steve realizes he’s worrying Bucky and that’s the last thing he wants to be doing. He manages to shake his head, but Bucky’s still frowning with concern.

“You miss your ma? Or you had a bad dream?”

Steve can’t hold his emotions in any longer and he bursts into tears. Bucky is here! He’s got Bucky back!

Bucky’s face falls and he sits up, letting the blanket drop down and holding his arms open. “Come here, Stevie.”

Hearing the nickname makes Steve cry harder. He hasn’t heard Bucky call him that since the war. After coming out of cryo, Bucky either hadn’t remembered the nickname or hadn’t felt comfortable using it and Steve had felt awkward about suggesting it.

But now, Bucky is calling him that cherished name as easily as he’s always done, because this is _his_ Bucky. His Bucky whose memories are intact and who loves Steve as much as Steve loves him.

His body is responding before his mind catches up and he crumbles into Bucky’s arms, one knee on his cot and his other foot still in the dirt. Bucky grunts a bit from the extra weight but quickly wraps his arms around Steve.

Steve buries his face into Bucky’s neck, breathing in his familiar scent and squeezing his arms around him. He can’t believe he has Bucky back! Bucky is alive and right there, in Steve’s arms and Steve is never letting him go again.

But Bucky still wants to understand what’s upsetting Steve. “Was it a bad dream?” he whispers into Steve’s hair.

That’s when it occurs to Steve how ridiculous he’s being. It’s not normal for anybody to just burst into tears in the middle of the night for no reason. He has to give Bucky a reason or he’s going to think Steve’s losing his mind. He manages to nod against Bucky’s neck as he continues sobbing, the emotions still overwhelming him. He can feel Bucky’s night shirt getting soaked from his tears but Bucky continues holding him close, rubbing his back.

“You wanna tell me about the dream?”

That’s when Steve realizes he has a problem. He’s making up baloney and Bucky will soon figure out that he’s making up baloney. But then he realizes that he can tell him the partial truth. “You died, Buck,” he chokes out in between the sobs that are racking his body.

Bucky sighs softly. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I know how bad those dreams can be, but it’s all okay now, ain’t it? I’m right here, ain’t I?”

Steve nods and clings to Bucky harder. Yes, he is. Yes, Bucky’s right here and Steve is never letting any harm come to him.

Bucky kisses Steve’s hair. “You wanna push the cots together?”

Immediately, Steve is nodding. He wants to keep Bucky as close to him as possible for as long as possible.

“Okay, but that means I gotta let go of you for a few minutes.”

Fear races down Steve’s back and he clings to Bucky harder.

Bucky rocks them back and forth and rubs Steve’s back. “It’ll just be for a few minutes, I promise. I ain’t going nowhere. I’m just gonna push the cots together and then we can lie down.”

Steve knows that’s true. They’ve done it a hundred times. Whenever one of them isn’t feeling well, they’ll push the cots together so they can sleep in each other’s arms like they did at home. With difficulty, Steve manages to peel himself off Bucky and stand up.

Bucky follows him up and gives him an encouraging smile. “It’ll just take a second, I promise.” He gently flicks Steve on the nose and gives him a kiss on the lips.

It was so sudden and casual that Steve didn’t have the time to react to it and by the time it registers that this was the first time that Bucky has kissed him in years, Bucky is already moving around the small tent, dragging the cots together and re-arranging the blankets.

Bucky keeps up a whispered stream of conversation as he works, telling Steve what he’s doing and that he’ll be done very soon. Steve just stands next to the oil lamp where Bucky has steered him and cries quietly.

Finally, Bucky lies down and gestures for Steve. “Alright, come on. I’m ready for proper cuddling,” he whispers with a grin.

Steve stumbles towards the cots and climbs on. Bucky spreads his arms and lies down, letting Steve plaster himself all over him. He shoves his hands under Bucky’s shirt so he’s touching his skin and wriggles one leg between Bucky’s. Having Bucky as close to him as possible is a sudden, frantic necessity that he needs to fulfill as soon as possible. Reaching down, he pulls one of Bucky’s legs up over his hips and wiggles so he wedges himself even closer to Bucky.

Bucky lets Steve arrange him as he wants and wraps his arms tightly around Steve when he’s done. Shifting Steve’s head, Bucky kisses his hair and starts whispering into his ear, his hands tightly clutching the back of Steve’s shirt.

“It’s okay, I’m right here. It was just a bad dream. I’m right here and we’re both fine and nothing’s gonna happen to me, I promise.”

That makes Steve cry even harder, his body still overwhelmed with emotion and the irony of Bucky’s words, but the sound of Bucky’s voice and the soothing rhythm of Bucky’s arms on his back help to calm him.

Within a few minutes, he’s asleep.

*             *             *

The sound of the camp bell wakes him and he shifts a bit, feeling Bucky’s arms around him. He can hear Bucky snoring quietly next to his ear and his chest is rising and falling against Steve’s.

Raising his head, Steve stares down at Bucky sleeping. He still can’t believe it.

Just yesterday, Bucky was dead and Steve was considering how to join him, and today, they’re both alive and together. The fact that they’re in the middle of a war zone doesn’t matter to him. He does feel a bit calmer than last night and it’s no wonder. Bucky has always been the missing piece in his life. Without it, he felt lost and incomplete, but when Bucky was in his life, everything was perfect and went the way it should.

It’s still dark outside, but now that Steve is calmer, he’s studying Bucky more closely. That’s when he notices how haggard Bucky looks. His face is too thin and he’s got dark circles underneath his eyes. In fact, with his hands beneath Bucky’s shirt, he can feel how pronounced his ribs are. That’s when he realizes that he’d forgotten about Bucky being tortured in the Hydra prison camp a few weeks before. He realizes how stupid he’d been! He should have gone even further back and spared Bucky those endless days of being tortured, starved and experimented on. He remembers the many nights Bucky’s nightmares would wake him and how he’d struggled to deal with the daily grind of being at the front while battling from the aftermath of his captivity. He and Bucky had argued about Bucky going home many times, but he’d refused to leave Steve alone.

Steve stares at Bucky, his heart aching. He’s such an idiot!

But then he realizes that going back that far would have been foolish. He hadn’t even been in Europe when Bucky had been captured—he’d arrived a few days into Bucky’s captivity. He would have had to find a reason to come to the front a few days earlier than the scheduled USO tour, which would have disrupted everybody’s schedules and may not even have worked, and then he would have had to find and rescue Bucky before he was experimented on. And the chances of him succeeding at that would have been very slim.

While his brain acknowledges that there’s nothing he could have done to prevent Bucky’s suffering, his heart isn’t so quick to forgive him. 

But at least Steve can support Bucky now. He can love him and take care of him and make sure nobody hurts him again.

Smiling, Steve is about to lean down and kiss Bucky awake, but then he pauses. Bucky used to be a very light sleeper, and the fact that he’s still sleeping so deeply after the bell has rung means that he’s really exhausted. And no wonder! Steve forced him awake in the middle of the night to comfort him when he was being hysterical, and then made him re-arrange the cots and comfort Steve until he fell asleep.

Get it together, Rogers! Bucky shouldn’t be spending time making Steve feel better. Steve has everything he needs right here. Crying about it is an indulgence he shouldn’t allow himself.

In the middle of his mental debate with himself, Bucky shifts and opens his eyes, blinking sleepily up at Steve. “Hey, Stevie,” he mumbles. “How you feeling?”

Steve smiles. “Better.”

Mirroring his smile, Bucky reaches up and strokes Steve’s cheek. “That’s good. You want me to go get breakfast for you and we can eat in here? We ain’t got nowhere to go today.”

Steve is about to nod, excitement rushing through him at the thought of being able to spend all day with Bucky. Just him and Bucky, cuddling in their little tent. In fact, having breakfast in bed and cuddling will be even nicer than the other version of this morning had been: Bucky climbing onto Steve and asking for a kiss with Steve pretending not to have any kisses left and then Bucky making fun of his rationing skills.

And that’s when Steve’s thoughts grind to a halt.

What is he doing? What. Is. He. Doing?!

They’re not at home, sitting in their little apartment. This tent is in the middle of a God-damn war zone and they’re in the middle of World War 2. And Steve isn’t here just to re-live the joys of living through a war. He’s here because in a few weeks, Bucky will fall from the train and be captured by Hydra, and Steve’s entire life with unravel in the span of a few seconds. And 70 years later, Thanos will use the Space Stone in the Tesseract that had fallen from the plane that took Steve to his temporary grave to destroy three and a half billion people in the blink of an eye.

Steve has a job to do. Bucky’s life is in his hands, as are the lives of 3.5 billion other people.

He can’t keep pretending they’re in Brooklyn, living their normal lives. By ignoring reality and what he knows the future holds, he’s risking losing Bucky all over again and having the old timeline happen all over again. In order to do his job, he needs to focus and get to work. He remembers Zhedor and Natasha’s advice: change what’s necessary but keep everything else the same. The more he meddles, the greater the chance that the timeline will be altered in horrible ways that Steve can’t prevent.

In fact, he’s already meddled! The last version of this morning had involved Bucky kissing Steve and their rationing discussion. They’d both acted calm and content, not hysterical and clingy like Steve is acting now. There’s no way he can make that former conversation happen again. Bucky will know something’s wrong with him and he won’t be as quick to make fun of Steve. He’ll focus more on comforting him.

Oh, this isn’t good. This isn’t good at all!

By allowing his emotions to overwhelm him, Steve is risking Bucky’s life all over again.

Bucky is frowning at him, clearly concerned by Steve’s lack of a response.

Swallowing hard, Steve forces himself to focus. “I—No, it’s fine. I wanna eat with the others.”

“You sure? We don’t have to.”

Yes, they do. Because Steve’s already meddled with the timeline, and if he keeps meddling for stupid reasons then he’s gonna get Bucky and 3.5 billion other people killed all over again.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Being around the others will be a nice distraction.”

Bucky still looks worried, but he gives him a smile and kisses him. “I’m proud of you. Okay, let’s get going.”

*             *             *

It’s incredibly weird to be doing things that he last did years ago, but his body remembers as if it was yesterday. They move the cots back to their original positions in a sequence of motions that feels so familiar that Steve is sure he can do it with his eyes closed.

He opens up his trunk at the foot of his cot and pulls out clothes and his toiletry kit. While Bucky takes down the extra sheet pinned across the door, Steve checks on the clothes that are pinned up along the roof.

It’s bizarre that he already knows which pieces have dried and which ones are wet before he even touches them. He knows three of the socks will be dry, but the fourth one won’t. One shirt will be dry but the one closer to the tent flap will still be moist. Reaching up, he touches the clothes and confirms that this part of history has repeated itself. It’s actually a nice confirmation that his meddling hasn’t interfered with such basic things. Splitting the dry items between himself and Bucky, he pulls off his pajamas and gets changed, pulling on his wool hat, thick jacket and boots.

Bucky’s taking a bit longer to get changed and when Steve glances at him, he can tell he’s moving slowly because he’s exhausted.

Shit.

He wants to suggest letting Bucky sleep some more and he’ll get him breakfast, but there’s that voice in his head, reminding him not to meddle with the timeline unnecessarily.

Well, looking after Bucky’s well being is always a necessity, but when they’re only a few weeks away from the train—a few weeks away from Bucky’s death, capture, life-changing ordeal—Steve won’t take any chances. 

But at the same time, he won’t let Bucky suffer.

“Here, Buck. Let me help with that.” He helps Bucky pull on his clothes, put on his boots and grabs his toiletry kit from his trunk for him. “Come on, let’s go.”

Bucky steps out of the tent ahead of him and Steve follows, pushing aside the tent flap. He’d been so focused on helping Bucky and making sure they go to breakfast that he’s completely unprepared to step in the middle of camp life again.

The minute the tent flap drops behind him, Steve is left gaping at the scene before him. It’s not terribly noisy because it’s cold and early in the morning. He hears the roar of a motorcar’s engine in the distance and there’s the clatter of dishes and pots from the direction of the mess tent, and people’s boots are crunching over the muddy snow covering the ground. But what really leaves him in shock is the people he sees.

Gabe’s dark skin easily catches his eyes and he watches him walking with Jacques, hats pulled down low and both of their arms crossed over their chests to ward off the cold, heading towards the mess tent. Jacques is saying something animated in French, his breath clouding in the cold air and Gabe is nodding. Maybe they feel Steve staring at them, because they both glance over and wave.

“Morning, Cap!” Gabe calls over.

“Bonjour, Capitaine!”

Steve continues gaping at them, his brain frozen with shock. It’s like watching ghosts walking around. People from his memories who have walked straight out of mind to stroll around this winter military base.

Both Gabe and Jacques look at him strangely but keep walking.

“Bonjour, Sergeant!”

“Good morning, Barnes!”

Bucky lifts his arm in greeting as he starts trudging through the snow towards the bathing area. “Morning, fellas. How are you this fine morning in frozen hell?”

“At least you’re more talkative than Cap this morning, huh?”

Bucky glances at Steve. Meanwhile, Steve manages to tear is gaze off Gabe and Jacques and he stares at the other soldiers he sees moving around. He recognizes almost all of their faces.

There’s the 18 year old Private who’s sharing Dum-Dum’s tent at the moment. He’s bent over in front of his tent, tying up his boot laces. Steve can’t remember his name. What he does remember is that the kid died two days from now. The Commandos were still in camp when it happened, preparing for their next mission so they weren’t with the young soldier’s unit. Dum-Dum had come into the mess tent for dinner, looking pale and a white-knuckled grip on his top hat.

_“The kid’s dead. Got blown up with three others. His head’s completely gone. The stupid brat had that pin-up broad’s picture in his shirt pocket. You remember? The one I gave him a few nights ago? Well, he ain’t gonna need that no more.”_

Steve stares at the young Private as he stands up from tying his shoelaces. He pats the top half of his jacket, as if he’s reassuring himself that something special is safely tucked into his uniform shirt’s pocket. Probably the picture. Which he’ll enjoy for another 48 hours before _dying_.

Jesus.

Jesus Christ!

Right on cue, Dum-Dum ducks out of the tent behind the kid, bumping into him. “What the hall are you standing in front of the tent flap for, kid? Forgot how to use your legs?”

The kid laughs a high-pitched laugh as if that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “No, Sergeant Dugan! I ain’t forget how to move my feet! See?” He lifts up one foot at a time and wiggles it for Dugan’s inspection. “They’re moving real well.”

Dum-Dum sighs dramatically. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you, kid. I really don’t. Come on, let’s get going. Hey, good morning, gentlemen! Captain!”

Steve can’t tear his eyes off the young kid, who’s now trudging along beside Dum-Dum.

He’s aware that Bucky, Gabe, Jacques and Dum-Dum are all staring at him because he’s standing frozen to the spot and hasn’t returned any of their greetings.

“Cap, you okay?” Bucky asks.

Steve moves his gaze to Bucky’s and stares at him helplessly. He feels numb. “I—”

Bucky steps closer to him, his frown evident beneath his wool military-issue hat. “Steve? I think you’re still upset from last night. You wanna go wait in the tent and I’ll bring you breakfast?” He’d lowered his voice as he spoke, not wanting to attract the wrong type of attention by addressing Steve so informally when they’re surrounded by soldiers who aren’t part of the Howling Commandos.

“I—Buck—”

Dum-Dum and the kid are walking towards the mess tent, the kid saying something that Steve can’t hear, but he keeps jumping around and shaking his legs, making Dum-Dum laugh.

All of a sudden, Steve’s brain roars back to life. He has to warn the kid. He has to warn the kid and tell him to find some excuse to miss the firefight in two days time. That has to be added to his list of things that need to get done. He needs to save the kid, then he needs to save Bucky and then he needs to save 3.5 billion people.

In fact, why stop at the kid? He’s surrounded by soldiers who will die between now and the end of the war. He can save all of them. He can make sure they all live to return to their families and their lives! Yes, that’s what he’ll do. He needs to start with the kid. He wishes he could remember his damn name! He takes a step in the direction Dum-Dum and the kid are walking, but Bucky puts a hand on his chest to stop him.

“Steve, go back into the tent, okay? You don’t look good. I’ll bring you breakfast.”

With difficulty, Steve tears his gaze off the kid and Dum-Dum, and looks at Bucky.

That’s when Natasha and Zhedor’s words come back to him. He can’t meddle unless it’s absolutely necessary. He can’t meddle because if he does, he may create an even bigger mess.

He might end up losing Bucky again. He might end up starting a sequence of events that will allow Thanos to wipe out 3.5 billion people and he’ll have to lose Bucky _again_.

But surely, saving this 18 year old kid’s life would count as necessary?!

That’s when Steve realizes he has no guidelines for what’s ‘necessary’ and what isn’t. Jesus! So how is he supposed to know if he can rescue the kid or not?!

“Steve, go back to the tent, okay?”

That’s when Steve realizes that this entire thing is turning into a mess. He’s standing here, debating whether to change the timeline or not…while he’s already changing the timeline! He didn’t return the  morning greetings, he didn’t laugh at the kids antics, Bucky hadn’t remarked that if it were any colder, his nose would fall off; and Steve’s about to miss going to the mess tent for breakfast.

His throat’s closing up and he realizes he’s close to panicking. His brain is zipping between ‘Need to save the kid!’ and ‘Go to breakfast, you idiot!’ and ‘The timeline’s already fucked up and now Bucky will die!’.

“Buck, I—I just need a minute, okay?” he breathes out. He feels like he’s about to have an asthma attack, but he knows that’s not possible any more.

Bucky frowns at him. “No, don’t be stupid. I’ll bring you breakfast.”

“No! No, it’s—I gotta—I just need—I wanna eat with the others, okay?”

“Steve, you—”

Steve grabs Bucky’s arm in a tight grip. “Buck, I _need_ to go to breakfast with the others, okay?”

Bucky stares at him. “Steve, you’re hurting my arm.”

Confused, Steve stares down at his hand, which is tightly squeezing Bucky’s forearm. Shit! With difficulty, he releases his grip. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry.”

Rubbing his arm, Bucky shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. If you’re so damn adamant about eating breakfast in the mess, then fine. You look like you’re gonna pass out, but it’s your choice.”

That’s when Steve realizes that he can’t go to the mess tent looking and feeling like this. People will notice that he looks terrible. He can’t hold normal conversations. He won’t even be able to focus on eating.

He needs…he just needs….time.

He needs some time. The timeline seems to be racing along, but he needs to take a small break and get his head screwed on straight. “Buck, I need a few minutes in the tent, okay? I’ll be fine, but I just—I need a few minutes.”

“You want me to come with you?”

No. No, Bucky needs to keep doing the things he’s supposed to be doing, even if Steve is incapable of doing the same. “No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Bucky has that look on his face that tells Steve he’s barely restraining himself from pulling Steve into his arms. And oh, how badly does Steve want to curl up in Bucky’s arms and tell him about the chaos in his head! But he can’t.

Before he can change his mind, he spins around and heads back into their tent. The lamp has been turned off so it’s nearly as cold inside as it is outside, but that’s the least of Steve’s concern.

He slides down to his knees and leans his head against the thin mattress on his cot.

This is a disaster! This is—this is—he can’t do this.

That kid will die two days from now. Is Steve supposed to save him? Was that another reason he was allowed to come back? What about all the others who will die? Is this kid’s life worth any more than the others? Was Steve supposed to research every single person who’s within his reach to figure out if their potential survival would benefit human kind?

How can he make such choices? How can he made the decision over who lives and dies?!

Being in the military is one thing. Making a plan and asking his team to follow that plan is a whole different scenario. Their lives aren’t literally in his hands, he’s just guiding their actions. But now, Steve realizes how much power he has.

He can control who lives and who dies.

He can decide to save that kid or to let him die. He can decide to save dozens or hundreds of other soldiers or to let them die.

The sheer enormity of that power clogs in his throat and he can barely breathe. He realizes he’s shaking and his hands are gripping the mattress so tightly that he’s tearing the sheets.

He can’t do this. He really can’t do this! This was supposed to be about saving Bucky and then later, preventing Thanos for killing 3.5 billion people. He isn’t supposed to be put in a position where he needs to choose whether an 18 year old kid with the innocence of a newborn lamb will live or have his head blown off by an explosive.

He wishes Natasha were here. He wishes Zhedor were here. Or he wishes that he could tell Bucky or anybody.

Just— _anybody!_

He needs help. He can’t do this on his own! How is he supposed to make these decisions for the next 74 years?! How is he supposed to live with himself when he has the ability to save people right in his hands and he chooses not use that power?

Tears have started streaming down his face and he feels so overwhelmed that he can barely breathe. This is too much. This is way too much. He needs help.

But he remembers Natasha and Zhedor’s words: He’s on his own. He has no one he can talk to, nobody he can go to for support and advice. If he tells anybody about the time travelling then he’s risking meddling with the timeline. He’ll have to tell Peggy about it after he’s got his hands on the Tesseract—otherwise, she may not feel inclined to destroy it—but until then, he’s on his own.

That makes him cry harder and he presses his face into his mattress to muffle the sounds.

This is such a mess! He’s supposed to be calm and in control. He’s supposed to be re-tracing his steps to keep his meddling in the timeline restricted to necessary events. But now he realizes that he has no idea what’s considered ‘necessary’ and he’s absolutely not capable of staying calm and in control.

Did he really think he’d just wake up in this tent and be able to go about his day as if the next 74 years never happened?!

With another sob, he realizes that yes, that’s exactly what he’d thought. He’d been so excited about seeing Bucky again and getting back to his own time that he hadn’t considered what an enormous and confusing burden his future knowledge would be.

But wait…

Wait a second! He’s having a crisis because he thinks he doesn’t know what his exact mission is. He feels unsure about who he’s supposed to save and when.

But he _does_ have a mission, doesn’t he? His main mission is to destroy the Tesseract with the Space Stone inside of it. That’s his main mission. And because Steve is allowed to be a little selfish in this new version of his life, his other—voluntary—mission is saving Bucky from falling from the train and being taken prisoner by Hydra.

Those are his missions.

And if he deviates from those missions by taking on other missions, he’s risking major alterations to the timeline, which may jeopardize his main missions.

That makes all of these conflicting, panicked thoughts come to a sudden stop. What if by saving the young kid, he puts a sequence of events into motion that will end up killing Bucky? What if by saving other soldiers around him, he alters the timeline in a way that will allow Thanos to succeed?

He realizes that the latter thought actually isn’t that convincing. Yes, he’ll save the 3.5 billion people, but that objective doesn’t fill him with determination.

But saving Bucky? That absolutely gives him the focus he needs. Many people are put into positions where they theoretically have to choose between strangers and the people they love, and that’s an easy choice with no real consequences. Steve realizes that he’ll have to make that choice for real. He’ll have to choose Bucky’s life over that kid’s life. Over thousands of other soldier’s lives.

And maybe it makes him a horrible, selfish person, but that’s not a choice that requires any thinking. He wants Bucky to live.

He’d spent years doing things for the greater good and pushing aside his own needs and wants—and where did that get him? Thanos still killed off 3.5 billion people, so he hadn’t created a better world. Instead, he’d helped save the lives of countless people, who had all thanked him and then returned to their grateful families and friends, while Steve had been left with nothing.

Natasha had told him over and over: this is his timeline. He’s allowed to be selfish. He has his main missions and as long as he fights to make them succeed, the rest of the world’s problems aren’t his responsibility. He doesn’t have to put everybody else’s happiness in front of his own anymore.

That’s what he’d done when he’d dropped the shield in that Siberian bunker and had become a fugitive. And because the old timeline had been terrible for Steve, that choice hadn’t led to a lifetime of happiness with Bucky—but that’s what he can do in this timeline.

He has his missions and if one of those missions is purely to make himself and Bucky happy, then so be it. He doesn’t owe the world a second lifetime of suffering. He’s never done anything to deserve that and it became clear to him that the world had little interest in making things fair or repaying the kindness Steve bestowed upon others.

So no, it’s not his responsibility to save that 18 year old kid. Steve won’t be killing him—it’ll be Nazis, Hitler, the American government who forced him to come fight, the choices are endless. Not Steve. Steve isn’t on that list. The kid’s death won’t be Steve’s fault.

Steve knows that he’ll continue feeling guilty over this, but he’d much rather live with some guilt than the crushing grief and sadness that had consumed him since Bucky had fallen from the train.

He deserves this. He absolutely deserves this. Natasha had been right. He’ll do what he can for the others, but they’re not his priority. His priority is Bucky Barnes and stopping Thanos.

“Stevie? Can I come in?” Bucky’s whisper carries through the closed tent flap.

Pushing himself up from the dirt, Steve quickly wipes the tears off his cheeks and brushes the dirt off the knees of his pants. “Yeah.”

Bucky ducks into the tent, his face pale with worry. He stands there, chewing on his lip and staring at Steve. “Stevie, I’m worried about you. Real worried. What’s going on?”

Steve stares at him.

Keeping this man alive is his mission. It’s an ironic twist, considering how it had been Bucky’s mission at one point to kill Steve, but that’s all in the past. Bucky will never fall from the train, he’ll never be captured and tortured by Hydra and he won’t ever be forced to become the Winter Soldier. He’s going to live a normal life. Steve acknowledges that the changed timeline may still result in Bucky dying. Maybe he’ll be hit by a motorcar within a few days of coming home from the war. Maybe he’ll be involved in a work related accident at a factory, thirty years from now.

But dying from a random accident would be a vast improvement compared to the years of suffering he’d endured with Hydra.

Steve will give Bucky Barnes his happy ending—no matter when that ending will happen. He will spend the rest of his life making sure that every single day from now until the day life parts them again will be filled with as much joy and love as possible. And if an 18 year old stranger needs to die to make that happen, so be it.

Steve is choosing Bucky.

Giving Bucky a smile, Steve shakes his head. “I’m fine, Buck. It was just the dream. There were other people in that nightmare and seeing everybody out there got my head turned around a bit. But I’m fine now.”

Bucky frowns at him. “You sure?”

Nodding, Steve presses his lips together. “But I could still use some hugging and kissing.”

That makes Bucky’s frown evaporate, as Steve knew it would. He realizes he’s been doing a terrible job of retracing his steps for today, and as a result, he’s been putting Bucky’s life at risk. That needs to stop now. Which means he needs to stop worrying Bucky and they need to get to breakfast.

“Well, let me see if I’ve got any of that for you.”

Grabbing the front of Steve’s jacket, Bucky hauls him close, holds his face with his glove-covered hands and kisses him.

Bucky’s lips are cold but the feeling of those familiar lips pressed against his own lights a warmth in Steve’s chest. Oh, how he loves this man! How can he possibly put the lives of strangers ahead of him? He doesn’t care what anybody else would say, he’s allowed to have this.

Bucky kisses Steve a few more times, then he pulls back and grins at Steve. “Can I get a kiss or you just gonna keep standing there?”

Without being aware of it, Steve finds himself replying. “I don’t know, Buck. I think I’m all out.”

Bucky chuckles quietly against Steve’s lips and gently catches Steve’s lower lip between his teeth before releasing it. “Oh, that’s too damn bad. Luckily, I’ve got some left, which ain’t a surprise since I’ve always been better at rationing than you. I don’t see why they think you’re the Army poster boy ‘round here when clearly, I’m better at all of this.”

The shock of hearing those familiar words despite the slightly changed circumstances makes Steve laugh out loud. The fact that he’s already made multiple small changes to the timeline but events still led to this conversation happening fills him with confidence.

He can do this. He can absolutely do this. He’ll save Bucky’s life, stop Thanos, he’ll spend the next 74 years taking care of Bucky and then he’ll be at that coffee shop in Manhattan in 2018 to meet Natasha.

But first, he wants to kiss Bucky some more.

“I’ll show you who’s got a better supply of kisses saved up, Barnes.” Then he swallows Bucky’s quiet but delighted laugh by pulling him close and kissing him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed my little Avengers Infinity Wars fix-it! I'm sorry there won't be any more, but I hope you liked it anyway.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [15th September 2018](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18220304) by [Tillthewheelsfalloff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tillthewheelsfalloff/pseuds/Tillthewheelsfalloff)




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